HOLY GRAIL TIMELAPSES | Capture The Perfect Day-To-Night Transition

Holy Grail Timelapses are BY FAR my favorite way to photograph a landscape. In this video I walk you through my technique and strategy from start to finish.
PART 2: • EDITING HOLY GRAIL TIM...
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Cameras:
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Lenses:
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Sony 16-35 f/2.8 GM - bhpho.to/3xOwP9W
Sony 50mm f/1.2 GM - bhpho.to/3xOwP9W

[@Nateinthewild]

Have you ever tried a timelapse before? What about a holy grail?

[@Paulus449]

I made a basic attempt at a day to night timelapse from my light polluted garden here in England, I have a lot to learn and your channel is my go to for learning new techniques and skills!

[@GusMcCrae01]

Oh man!!!! You're killing me. I'm watching this at one point you have the timelapse over the western Green Lake with Square Top mountain in the background. Been there many time for photography and hiking up to Granite Lake at the northern base of Square Top. This is a beautiful area of the Wind River Range Mountains.

[@brintondarnell7023]

You couldn't have explained this any better! Thank you for taking the time to do this. I was just thinking what workflow I needed to do a day to night astro time lapse without using a computer to calculate it and this is perfect! I can see the steps that really require your full attention to get the transition spot on! Gonna have a go this week in Tenerife. Thank you Brint 😃

[@shupingyin8082]

That Milky Way image at 24.42 ish is amazing

[@Lukas_Kramer_Photography]

Thank you very much Nate, I really enjoy your videos a lot ! I've recently switched over to the Sony system and while I haven't retired my Canon 6D just yet, it's certainly a breath of fresh air to be working with these crazy fast lenses for astro photography that sony offers. I am looking forward to what I'll be shooting with them !

[@geronimoflyingfree]

oh wow, I loved the manual approach! I normally use qdslrdashboard and used to do an interval ramping - but I guess I will stop doing this! The changes in speed were just annoying to even out in DVR and I honestly prefer your approach! I just thought the sunset/dawn part would get choppy if I didn't apply the doble-the-shutterspeed rule for the intervals, but you just keept the 20s interval and it looks awesome! This is kind of a revelation to me, thanks a lot, Nate! 🙏😊❤️ and sorry for my English, but I think one can understand it still.. 😅

[@paradanglers]

Well it's about damn time Nate! Just kidding, thanks for a great video. Your enthusiasm is infectious and that end video looks amazing!!

[@Nateinthewild]

Hahaha you’re not wrong though, this is LONG overdue! Thanks for watching 🙏🏼

[@GARY1951A]

WOW!! Just found your channel, and this is fantastic! I am going to watch your other videos and go out and try this! I am not in Utah (very beautiful) but just north of Dallas Texas - I may go west to a darker sky and try your process!! Thanks for the video!

[@LoriGraceAz]

Great day to night timelapse tutorial! I learned a few things from this that I'll end up using in my own. The most common thing that happens that ruins my timelapses involve me being clumsy and inadvertently kicking or tapping the tripod with my foot.

[@Nateinthewild]

Hahaha oh my godddddd I’ve ruined so many timelapses like that, I feel you there 😂 Thanks for watching!!

[@morganhaysphoto]

Thank you so much for this!! This is going to be so helpful !

[@bothhemispheresphotography5031]

Fellow pro timelapse photog here, who also uses Sony (and almost always shoots fully manual for HGs). Big kudos on this tutorial: very clear, easy to see what's going on, and a great scene to use as an example. A tip: I find Sony's zebras invaluable for holy grails: I set them to 100+, and just look to keep the blinkies _just_ visible (note: best to set Creative Style to "Neutral"). There is enough room in the raws in post to bring those "over exposed" areas around the clouds/sun/moon back down to visibility. Zebras, vs the meter or histogram, allow me to choose some areas to deliberately overexpose (e.g. sun/moon), so that I can safely push exposures to the right throughout the holy grail. To use them, for landscape holy grails, it's mostly about the clouds (or the brightest part of the scene, if no clouds): I maintain an exposure such that the zebras blink on the very brightest edges of the clouds/landscape (or, if the sun/moon is in shot, I expose such that the circle of the sun/moon is blinking, but also a bit of the fuzzy outer area too). I also have a Nikon Z8, which is a great timelapse tool as well. But the biggest failing of this camera is no zebras in photo mode (it drives me crazy, especially since it has zebras in _video_ mode). Headlamps are the bane of my existence.

[@levijanssenphotography4751]

Great video! I subscribed, so I know when the editing video comes out. I have done a few Holy Grail timelapses. They are a lot of fun to put together.

[@VadimMityura]

thanks a lot!!!

[@gordonnorman8259]

Excellent tutorial - and I love that short clip form Alstrom Point!

[@amaurieraz]

What a great and informative video brother. Loved it a lot. Can’t wait for the next part

[@Paulus449]

amazing stuff, can't wait to see the final timelapse! I would love to take these kind of timelapses but scared to be alone outside after dark with expensive camera and lens!

[@Nateinthewild]

Haha the final timelapse is at the very end of this video!

[@Paulus449]

@@Nateinthewild ah brilliant thanks! I watched until 26.02 when you said it would be in the 2nd half of the series! The timelapse is stunning!

[@Nateinthewild]

@@Paulus449 Oh my bad, that one is on me. I did pretty clearly hint that I would be putting off the edit until the next video.

[@scottrud2699]

Awesome tutorial! Thank you. I'm excited to give it a try.

[@joehoey2525]

Great video! Can’t wait to see the edit

[@DigiDriftZone]

For the battery, I do a hybrid, I use a smallrig USB-C battery and you can connect a cable to it while it's powering the camera. I find that better as if I nudge the USB-C connection to the power bank, it doesn't interrupt anything. While it does discharge slowly, I find after 7 hours I still have 85% battery or so.

[@Nateinthewild]

I was under the impression those Smallrig batteries could only charge OR discharge, not both at the same time. Interesting to hear that you can power them while in use, I’m going to have to give those a try.

[@chris.fitzgerald]

Just did my first one last night. Out at the beach day to night and catching the meteors. I did a lot of research on equipment. I ended up getting a Nikon z6 ii that will shoot the raws and make a 4K 24fps in camera, while keeping the files separate Straight out of camera it’s not bad. I shoot ib P mode so the camera will make the exposure triangle changes as it gets darker within the parameters I have set including ISO, and shutter speed. The bug of time lapse and Milky Way got me. Cheers from the Jersey Shore. 🌴 🌊 🏖️

[@ecobooster8298]

This was freaking awesome yo!! Wow!

[@DebashishGhoshOfficial]

Great video. I saw that you talked about the weird time around the blue hour where you keep your exposure compensation slightly negative to keep the blowing highlights under control. I'm curious if that could be handled by the highlight priority metering mode. What are your thoughts about that?

[@Nateinthewild]

It absolutely could, and that's a great option if you know how to do that and how to interpret the new metering results. It all more or less boils back down to my original point that these timelapses are much easier once you have a decently solid understanding of your camera and how it functions.

[@Moonwatcher27]

Hey Nate, new follower here. Do you do wildlife and astro workshops? I sure be interested in attending one.

[@Nateinthewild]

I sure do! We have an astro workshop in Norway each February and Moab in April! www.inthewildworkshops.com/workshops

[@pathfindercod4638]

Great video, thank you. Wait wait wait you said you make no money from this and KZbin is not an income. Then later said thank you I can’t believe I get to do this for work for my job. :-) lol im a geek not. Need.

[@Nateinthewild]

Haha it was more a thought about "general outsidedness" being my job rather than KZbin itself :)

[@vurhd]

Would you ever use your phone camera app to adjust exposure instead of manual changes to prevent camera shake?

[@larry8056]

Hi Nate, great video and luckily I only just watched your Day to Night video the other day so didn't have to wait the full year to see this next video haha. I have a couple of questions on your shooting technique and settings that I am hoping you can answer, I am looking to shoot HG timelapses at some point so I am doing my research up front to make sure I am good to go when I get a nice clear night. I have experience of shooting star trails/milky way in single exposures and stacking so I feel like I have a good handle on the typical exposure settings needed at night for a single shot but I am still pretty new to timelapses. Would it be safe to say you based your 15 sec max shutter speed on the fact you know the focal length, aperture etc. using the rule of 500/NPF rule to make sure when night time came your exposures of the stars were not creating star trails and were in fact pin point sharp like anyone does for a single milky way shot? Furthermore, you also fixed the aperture super wide as you knew the night time shot would need as much light as possible and as you mentioned changing this after starting your timelapse would create the vignette. For ISO, this is set low for daytime and ramped last once you reached your max. shutter speed and the light continued to fade with the only downside here being it creates noise but since you can't change SS/aperture anymore its your only choice left. With your max. shutter speed known, you then set your interval to 20 secs which gave you a worst case of 5 secs for the camera to save the image and for you to make the incremental exposure settings change like changing the ISO once the shutter speed reached max. 15 secs. For the earlier shots where the shutter speed is a lot shorter, you have much more time in between shots to dial these setting changes in I am guessing? Finally, in my research on timelapses a lot is said about 180 rule for shutter speed and interval. I am guessing since your scene is pretty slow moving timelapse with minimal clouds and mainly sunset colour changes you knew that 20 sec interval wouldn't create anything too jumpy/stacatto (except when the campers head torches came on)? Watching both your day to night and this video it seems your initial exposures don't follow the 180 rule but as your ramp the exposure they eventually do but this rule really isn't that important for HG timelapses as there generally isnt too much fast movement in the scene and starting with a longer shutter speed initially during the day would probably mean you still need an ND filter which is obviously no use at nightime? Appreciate any help on the above - great final timelapse btw!

[@andycoleman2708]

Have you tried the phone app (Imaging Edge) to control the Sony camera for adjusting the settings without touching the actual camera?

[@Nateinthewild]

In my experience that app disconnects any time you do anything else on your phone (even if your phone goes to sleep), so over a 5-7 hour shooting experience that would be a serious problem. Touching the camera isn't an issue, you just have to be gentle.

[@scdawes]

Really enjoying your content as a newcomer to timelapse phototgraphy , one queation I have about LRtimelapse is I assume you are using the pro version license ? can you elaborate what elements of your editing would not be available if I purchased the private license version as ther is a considerable price difference between the two ?

[@Nateinthewild]

I am using the pro license, and TBH I don't remember the entirety of the differences off the top of my head but they are outlined on the LRTimelapse website. I believe the non-pro license is limited to sequences of 300 images or less, JPG image exports only, and then final videos of 4k or below (as opposed to 8k or source resolution). Only you can determine how important those features are for you. For me as a working professional it's a no brainer, but I definitely understand someone not wanting to spend the extra money if they have no need for an 8k timelapse in Apple ProRes.

[@scdawes]

@@Nateinthewild Thanks for the prompt reply , I have checked the website where there is a comparioson , can you clarifiy what this one means as its not available on the private license - Batch operations for Preview Creation, Deflicker and Multipass-Deflicker to speed up the workflow when editing multiple sequences ?

[@calfisher1586]

Maybe a question for the editing video when it comes out, but do you ever have to deal with noise when you start the astrophotography portion of the time lapse at 15s and ISO 3200?

[@KenToney]

I love doing these and normally use a Timelapse + View for ramping. I do like these manual ramping, more fun! How many sec between exposers do you have set? I make adjustments between shots. I guessing you are using the Timelapse function in the a1 and just doing the same throughout the sequence? Of coarse during daytime you have lots of time between shots.

[@KenToney]

You kind of answered question. Are you using internal intervalometer ?

[@zackallen8759]

Ditch the dummy battery and just use a real Sony batt in there, while running your power bank into the USB-C port. This will allow you to hot swap your battery banks (if needed) and your internal battery will always be at the ready.

[@Nateinthewild]

The Sony A1 does not allow charge while in use.

[@zackallen8759]

@@Nateinthewild might not charge while on, but it powers from both regardless. You can hot swap all day long. It will charge a Sony batt in the body when off.

[@Nateinthewild]

@@zackallen8759 I have had my camera die while connected to USB-C power, not theoretical, I've had it happen.

[@teamgig]

Great video. I'm guessing you'll use LRtimelapse in your editing process. Have you tried using qDslrDashboard to control your capture during the ramping? I've done many Holy Grails before, but am just starting to test out qDslrDashboard. Seems promising. What I like about it is that you could get your timelapse going, then take stills with a second camera during the whole duration.

[@Nateinthewild]

I think I might be confused. qDSLR Dashboard looks like you need to connect a computer to control the camera? Hiking an entire laptop out into the field seems like a significantly worse solution than just ramping manually, am I misunderstanding the product? Also.... why do you need qDSLR Dashboard to use a second camera for stills? Why not....just bring a second camera?

[@teamgig]

@@Nateinthewild Oh no, certainly not a laptop! I've been using an old cell phone that doesn't even have service attached. So no more weight than your battery pack. You can connect via USB cable or wifi direct to your camera. It has an LRtimelapse module to automate the ramping. It frees you up from doing the ramping manually, which as you said does happen frequently at times. So you could even take another body and find compositions a half mile away. Or sleep a couple hours if it's 2am. :) All depends on one's objectives. Sometimes, my primary aim is to shoot stills with many compositions through golden and blue hour. But I'd still love to capture a timelapse, so an automated method is useful. Still testing but so far it looks promising.

[@Nateinthewild]

@@teamgig Ahh, got it. I will admit that an auto-ramping solution would be fantastic, but I have yet to see a camera successfully meter exposures in astronomical twilight. An external module might be the solution.

[@ForestBarkdollWeil]

I can’t believe you called me a nerd…

[@vurhd]

What tripod do you use?

[@Nateinthewild]

There is a link for it in the video description :)

[@vurhd]

@nateinthewild, thanks but the link doesn't work?

[@Nateinthewild]

@@vurhd Oh that is strange, I wonder what happened. I just updated it, give it a try again if you don't mind!

[@vurhd]

​@@Nateinthewild ..That updated link goes to a page on filters? Can't see any tripods on it

[@Nateinthewild]

@@vurhd Hahaha ugghh, my mistake, sorry. Here ya go: www.coloradotripod.com/?rfsn=4390373.a7356c

[@VadimMityura]

thanks a lot!!!